


Fire and Fast Bullets

by Birdhouse



Series: Shelter From the Storm [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Dreams, Gen, IKEA family, Slavery, after the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdhouse/pseuds/Birdhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The September Attacks changed everything, and not just in the 23 cities that were wiped off the face of the map. Boston may have been one of them, but the Leverage crew escaped through the interference of Paul Callan and the other members of Soldaritas Queritas, fleeing the city for the relative safety of the small towns. Events beyond their control, however, drive them to split up and the battered Leverage team is forced into a confrontation that they’re not quite prepared for.</p>
<p>In a town already ravaged by the aftereffects of the bombs, they discover that children and adults alike have gone missing, and the carnival just outside of town looks awfully suspicious. Now they have to work there for a living, keep one of their own safe, and play detectives in a situation where they might just be in over their heads.</p>
<p>With a mysterious illness and outside influences to contend with, they have their work cut out for them...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. November Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Fire and Fast Bullets is actually story #3 in an ongoing series that merges characters, concepts and settings from Leverage, Jericho, Miracles and Life along with a few hints at Carnivale. 
> 
> Stories #1 (Tombstone Shadow) and #2 (Walking in Memphis) are referenced sparingly throughout, and should be done sometime this summer. The follow-up (The Buyers and the Bought) is plotted for a mid-fall release date. (Woo?)
> 
> We tried to keep the setting intuitive, but feel free to Google any of the above mentioned shows if you feel confused. F&FB consists of Leverage characters only. 
> 
> Beta'd by [alinaandalion](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alinaandalion/pseuds/alinaandalion). Any mistakes remaining are the fault of the authors.

_November 10_  
  
The truck was on its last legs.  
  
Sophie Devereaux didn’t know much about motor vehicles (they were somewhere between _laptop computers_ and _hip waders_ on the list of things she couldn’t be bothered with), but she knew enough to realize that much. There was something of a wheeze in the hood area, and a strange vibration beneath her feet anytime anyone started it up, as if the floor was trying to separate from the walls.  
  
 _I’m surprised it lasted this long_ , she thought as Eliot Spencer coaxed (and cursed, alternately) the shabby pickup over the crest of the hill. There were some things trucks like this simply weren’t meant for. Driving out of town in a hurry -- through a hailstorm of automatic fire -- was one of them.  
  
It was luck, then-- and Sophie had to admit she was a firm believer in luck, now-- that they were near a town when the engine gave out in a spectacularly loud blast. Eliot just managed to hit the brakes and steer them into a field of corn stubble. All anyone could do was look at the billowing smoke before Nate turned in his seat, expression weary with a hint of annoyance.  
  
“Alright, everyone, it looks like we’re looking at a nice fall walk to finish out the afternoon.” Well, at least he was _trying_ for light and breezy, the Nate Ford of their cons. Sophie cracked the door and slipped from the truck, feet hitting the hard packed earth as she braced her hands on her lower back and looked about them. Looked at the horizon, the typical hazy gray of November, dark blurs just visible like smudges on the bottom of a watercolor painting.  
  
She tried out a smile of her own as she looked at the others, Parker and Eliot crawling out of the truck a little slower than everyone else. “At least the temperature is good for a walk, yeah? Imagine if we were trying this in August-- no thank _you_.” Her eyes fixed again on the horizon and her smile wilted just a little. “Do you think that’s the town, then?”  
  
“Sure is,” Alec Hardison replied, clearly muffling a groan as he leaned against the truck, his usually bright eyes dull as he followed her gaze. “Carthage, Missouri, population: _nil_.” He hiked his duffel bag over his shoulder, still glowering at the horizon before he kicked the truck’s back tire. “Man, why couldn’t you break in, like, Joplin? St. Louis? Somewhere with _civilization_?” He kicked again - and practically toppled head over heels when his sneaker bounced off, slammed into the running board instead. He hopped around, cursing beneath his breath.  
  
“Beggars,” Nate said, archly, over Eliot’s less-than-enthusiastic _damnit, Hardison_! “Can’t be choosers.” He pulled his hat on, curls still escaping, as he came around to the back of the truck. “At least we don’t have to push it far.” He waved at the copse of trees just past the decimated field.  
  
There was less in the truck than they had started with - two months on the road had severely depleted their scavenged, stockpiled and stolen supplies - but it was still worth hiding. Every little bit helped, especially when approaching a new town. One never knew if they would be run right back out of town, or worse.  
  
Eliot was taking his third halting step back toward the truck when Parker intercepted him, as graceful - and yet abrupt - as ever. “Fall back, Sparky, we’ve-” She waved at the rest of them, and Sophie felt a pang not entirely unlike matronly pride at her insistence. “-got it.”  
  
“Who _cares_ about pushing the truck,” Sophie sniped, throwing her hands into the air with just a hint of the proper drama. “ _I’m_ thinking about walking to Carthage.” Maybe it _was_ only a mile or two, but she could keep up her old ways, just so things would feel familiar. It wasn’t was that hard a walk, not anymore, and she’d stopped wearing heels a long time ago. They simply weren’t practical, not unless they were pulling a job, and those were few and far between. But if Eliot could concentrate on her complaints and scoff, well-- perhaps he wouldn’t try and insist he help them…  
  
She patted him on the shoulder, though, on her way to the back of the truck; glad that at least they hadn’t parked in mud. Nate looked up from making sure that the back was shut as he laughed, genuine amusement and mocking in his tone as he jerked his chin at Parker, eyes sharp.  
   
“I trust you behind the wheel more than I trust her, anyhow. You’re the, the-- ah... well, you’re making sure it doesn’t roll over us.”  
  
The look Eliot gave Nate in return made it clear he didn’t believe the older man, but he pulled the door open again and stepped up into the truck. Sophie gave him a look of her own as she braced her hands against the cold metal-- since leaving Boston, they’d let Parker drive many times, but if Nate wanted to help out and get Eliot into the truck, then she wouldn’t stop him.  
   
A damp wind blew past them and over them, and she shivered briefly, though it wasn’t as cold as it _would_ get as the days continued on. It was enough that the bumper beneath her hands was chilly, that her warmer fingers left condensation in their wake. Hardison was still muttering under his breath as he planted his hands next to hers, eyes on the reddish-brown hair visible through the back window. His muttering stopped, but he still spoke, too low for anyone’s ears but hers.  “He’s not got any better since Memphis, has he?”  
  
She looked at him sharply. Warm, concerned brown eyes met her gaze. “You can’t really lie to us,” he said, still softly. “Maybe you can try, but if even Parker sees it...” He trailed off as the blonde thief joined them, leaning against the bumper. Nate fastened the corner of the tarp down again, a pile of cans, bottles and boxes at his feet - they couldn’t hit town empty-handed.  
  
And….she didn’t really want to answer that question.  
  
So she didn’t, not really, just settling for an abrupt shake of her head, refusing to look at Eliot in the driver’s seat. She braced her feet against the ground, looked at the grove ahead of them. The leaves were long gone, littering the ground beneath, tall skeletons of trees stretching towards the sky-- but it was alright. It’d work all the same: it wasn’t likely there’d be too many people coming in along this road.  
  
There weren’t many people coming up from Louisiana in general, not really. They hadn’t seen anyone in the past few days, and it had been lonely. Like the grove, naked and dark against the gray sky. She felt the parking and emergency brakes let go as Eliot shifted in the seat, and she pushed, braced alongside the others. The truck car shifted easily, bumping lightly in the tracks left long ago by some farmer’s tractor.  
  
“If you’d told me two months ago,” Sophie began as the truck’s momentum increased, “that I’d be pushing a broken down truck through some Nebraska--”  
  
“--Missouri--” Nate corrected, and she snorted inelegantly as she tossed back her hair.  
  
“--fine! _Missouri_ corn field...” She snorted again, lips curled in an incredulous expression as the truck bumped out of the tracks and onto uneven ground again.  
  
“You wouldn’t have believed him?” That was Parker, leaning back to look at Sophie over Hardison’s shoulder as she grinned. “I don’t believe it, and I’m _seeing_ it. Oh!” The thief lifted one of her hands from the bumper, catching at her bangs and giving them a tug. “Maybe Hardison’s hacked my _mind_.”  
  
Hardison chuckled that time, and the cold knot in Sophie’s chest --the one that had been there since September, since their last time in Boston, with the bombs -- loosened again, like it had at Parker’s taking Eliot’s place. _He can still laugh._ “I’m good, ma’, but this time I’d have to _use_ my mind to _hack_ your mind, and....”  
  
“No, no, I know, you’re a _Jedi_! Like those movies you showed me!” Back before their world had gone electricity - and thus, movie - free. “‘This is not the Sophie you’re looking for....’”  
  
The truck rolled a few more feet, and stopped, still smoldering, in the middle of the trees. Nate gave the two youngest members of the team a dirty look. “I’m pretty sure I did all the pushing there, you two were too busy talking.” But there was that twinkle in his eyes again, somewhere behind the blue, and Sophie knew he’d missed Hardison’s jokes and Parker’s...well, Parkerness as much as she had.  
  
“When _aren’t_ they too busy talking?” Sophie hadn’t even realized the window had been down or that Eliot had been listening, but it made sense. And yeah, there it was, cracked open, though Eliot was leaning back into the truck to lock it again before he slid fully out of the truck, one hand braced against the seat as his feet hit solid ground. “They talk so much you could track us by their voices alone.” He made little gabby motions with his hands as he stood, and Sophie let her smile broaden, glad to see this side of Eliot again.  
  
Everyone was quieter, now, but some more so than others. Parker, well-- Sophie sometimes doubted you could really shut the younger woman up. She left the others behind defending themselves as she headed for the boxes Nate had lifted out earlier. It was getting later, and soon it would be dark, but she didn’t have the heart to nag any of them, not really. She wanted the moments where things were almost normal to _last_.  
  
...only...  
   
 _It still looks like rain_ , she mused, looking up at the sky as she lifted a couple of the bags. She glanced over her shoulder at the grove and the others. “Does it look like rain to any of you?” She questioned, turning around fully -- it wasn’t _quite_ the same as nagging, not really.  
  
“I was hoping you wouldn’t noti-”  
  
“Has for the last hou-  
  
“ _Hello,_ the sky’s all gray? Of course it’s--"  
  
“-What?”  
  
All four spoke at the same time; exchanged suspicious, embarrassed or amused looks. Nate threw up his hands in surrender before bending to pick up the biggest of the boxes. She watched as Eliot gave him another dirty look, which he met with a triumphantly smug smile; watched Eliot take four bags in retaliation, wince, and quickly redistribute the weight -- clearly he thought he managed before anyone noticed.  
  
“It’s gonna rain within the hour,” he said, and it took all of Sophie’s skill to detect the strain in his gravel-silk voice. “So, stow the chitchat and let’s not get soaked, yeah?”  
  
“I still don’t see how you tell,” Parker said, blinking up at the grey-white sky, frowning. She picked up the last bag, leaving Hardison with the very last of the pallets of bottled water. Sophie added that to the top of her mental list of supplies, noted Eliot and Nate doing the same exact thing. “All the clouds look the same to me. Except that one, that one looks like a Glenreader.”  
  
Now Eliot’s expression was full of skepticism as he glanced at Parker, still juggling the weight, Sophie noticed. If there was a way to get him to pass a bag or two off, well... there wasn’t. She sighed instead, stepping closer to Parker as she shifted her own bags around, until they weren’t digging into the palms of her hands anymore. They dug into her fingers instead and tried to cut off her circulation, turning the skin pink and white alternately. “It’s the smell, Parker,” she sniffed, as if providing an example, and nodded. “Though how he pinpoints the time, _that’s_ beyond me.”  
  
Helpful though. If she could do something like that every time she wanted to wear a specific outfit, well! It would definitely come in handy. Only, not so much now, not when there weren’t diamonds and art and other shining things to try and get her hands on. The feeling of nostalgia was back, but she shoved it away again just as quickly as she started back towards the road. Nate followed after, scoffing lightly as he shifted his grip on the box he held close to his chest to check his watch briefly.  
  
“Either way, we have an hour to make it to Carthage, before we find out if we’re all made of sugar and spice.” He paused, glancing over his shoulder with a familiar smirk. “Well, aside from Eliot, but no one would ever think _that_.”

Amd Eliot growled, as if to prove him right.


	2. Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt

Everything still hurt, and everyone else knew it, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.  
  
Eliot trudged under the weight of the four bags -- canned vegetables, tuna, things he never would have touched if circumstances were normal. But, as the truck situation, and the Tennessee situation and every other situation they’d encountered in recent memory proved, there was no such things as normal circumstance anymore. Every step jarred his bruised ribs, and he could feel his heartbeat in his _shins_.  
  
 _That can’t be normal_.  
  
But it was only a mile walk up the deserted Route 71, only twenty pounds of canned goods, and there was no way in hell that Eliot Spencer was going to let either of those facts stop him. All the same he couldn’t keep carrying them the way he was. He stopped, already falling behind the others though he hated to admit it, and let the empty duffle slung over one shoulder fall to the ground, quickly shoving the canned goods inside as he listened to the others talking ahead of him.  
  
It was almost like things were normal when you ignored where they were and the fact they carried half a grocery store with them. He hoisted the bag again, gasping though he swallowed the sound quickly, straightened and picked up the pace so he was walking beside Hardison, hearing the tail end of the hacker’s contribution to the conversation.  
  
“--and you know, if Matty was here, we’d be having macaroni for dinner every night. You can’t deny it.” The last was aimed at Eliot, who shrugged, a smile lifting the edges of his lips though even hurt, in the end. He hefted the duffle a little higher, nodding up at the first of a series of houses.  
  
“Not to break up this _thrilling_ conversation--” While it wasn’t thrilling, he did have to admit he missed the kid, hopefully safe with the others in Kansas by now-- “But, we’ve got a plan, right, Nate? For how we’re gonna pay for what we need to fix the truck?” No one, not now, was going to accept money for the repairs. Not in a _million_ years.  
  
Nate gave him _that_ look in return, the one where he squinted out the corners of his narrowed eyes. The one that meant the older man was flying by the seat of his (admittedly) occasionally genius pants. The one that he’d seen, repeatedly, before all hell broke loose back east. Parker was still nursing the dog bites on her leg from the _last_ time he’d seen that look. He growled, wordlessly, and stomped ahead of the group for a moment. Until it sank in that that would let them see the limping. He fell back at _that_ thought.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Sophie said, calmly, though he knew the grafter well enough to know that the calm was a front. “I’m sure they’ll need something we have....”  
  
 _Yeah? And what if it’s something we don’t want to part with_? There were too many variables, and Nate _knew_ it. He said as much as they continued on down the road.  
  
“We might not be trading this time. We might...” He grimaced, and continued as if every word felt as painful as Eliot’s back, “We might have to just work for it.”  
  
There was a dead pause in the conversation.  
  
“Work.” Hardison broke the silence several minutes later, voice deadpan. “As in, a job. As in, doing things for other people....?”  
  
“In exchange for what we need, yes,” Nate returned, eying Hardison with an expression that matched what Eliot’s head felt like. “It’s not that difficult a concept.”  
  
Sophie nodded in agreement to that, for once, and it was only a moment before she was adding her two cents (...or, item worth bartering for, because money was, again, useless. But two cents worked well enough, and it wasn’t like it mattered.)  
   
 “We do it all the time, only now instead of getting a nice fat bonus in our bank accounts and a warm fuzzy feeling from helping others out, we get...” Eliot watched as she paused, struggling with a way to say the words to make it seem like something that was really special, instead of a necessity. “...we get a working truck. It shouldn’t be that hard, we can do it!”  
  
And now Sophie sounded like a motivational speaker who didn’t really believe in what she was saying. Eliot grimace, watching the back of Nate’s hat rather than the road ahead of them. “It’s not gonna be hacking and stealing, though, probably,” he grunted, wrapping an arm around his ribs briefly as he squinted against the first drop of rain falling from the sky. “It’ll be whatever they need doin’ that they can’t get done themselves. Even if that’s choppin’ wood or haulin’ water or somethin’.”  
  
“See, see, I’m not good at that! I’m not _Laura Ingalls_.” Hardison hissed, and his hands would have been waving if they hadn’t been making sure the pallet of water didn’t hit the ground. “I didn’t know that the whole country going haywire was going to send us back to play Cowboys and Indians-- I didn’t sign up for this.”  
  
The words _no one did_ were on the tips of Eliot’s tongue before he settled for another grunt, looking past Nate to see the first in a row of houses, worn and weather-beaten. Parker leaned against Hardison’s side as she looked at them too, with the narrowed, assessing eyes of a thief. “No one did,” she replied, stealing Eliot’s words as she let the bag she carried rest in the crook of her elbow. “I mean, I didn’t see any sign-up sheets anywhere.”  
  
It left him wondering, once again, what exactly had happened. The fact that Boston was gone, well - they’d still been there, or close enough to see the mushroom cloud, close enough that Eliot still had his private freakout moments any time hair came out in hisfingers , any time he woke up to hear any of the others being sick...  
  
No one lacked for nightmares these days.  
  
But Boston wasn’t the only city gone. They’d learned that much as they traveled. D.C. New Orleans. New York City, strangely, spared - but nearly devoid of people, now, in case of a second wave. City after city, destroyed or abandoned. It was eerie.  
  
“If there had been we’d’ve stole them,” Hardison continued to gripe, adjusting the water again. It wasn’t making it any lighter, apparently. His laptop bag kept banging against it; the hacker carried like a security blanket, though the internet hadn’t reappeared since the bombs either. “Burned them up before this damn-fool idea took off.”  
  
Eliot had to cock his head to the side at that, before he looked away again to watch the houses for signs of life, not really expecting to see any until they got into Carthage proper. There weren’t any dogs, no stray cats, and no wash hung out to dry. But, of course, that last made sense-- no one would have hung out their wash today anyhow, not with the look of rain about. “And you think no one would have just printed more?” He asked, for the sake of a little back and forth.  
  
The houses grew closer together the more they walked, and Sophie and Nate-- thankfully, for his peace of mind-- drew closer to him, Parker and Hardison. He almost wished he didn’t need to carry the bag, that he could protect them, and... the bag’s weight lifted, and he looked over to see Parker shouldering it, missing the smirk on Sophie’s face in the process. Eliot almost complained, snarled for her to give the bag back, then thought better of it. If they got ambushed, it’d be better not to have it. Hell, Parker could use it for a weapon if she needed to.  
  
“Anyone else, and I’m just putting this out there, not trying to cause alarm-” Nate said, mildly, though the set of his shoulders was tense, ready to move, and Eliot shook his head. “Anyone else think there’s something off about this place?”  
  
“You mean besides the fact that we just passed the fourth Laundromat in town?” Hardison shot back, pointing at the coin-operated Laundromat beside them. “How does a town with a population less than most college campuses need four of ‘em?”  
  
“...that’s beside the point,” Nate said, patiently, though his words trailed to a dead stop at the huge board in front of them.  
  
At one point, it had been a typically kitschy “Welcome to Carthage!” sign. Now, other signs, posters and paint covered it, the same “Do you have...?” “Daily Roll Call at 8:30am!” “Has anyone seen...?” and “Warning!” signs as every other town they hadn’t been able to avoid. But dominating half the board, under a heading marked _missing,_ was a list of names.  
   
And ages.  
  
And Eliot just about saw red.  
  
 _Hannah Ferris, 11. Graham Carrol, 9. Trai Ngo, 16._  
  
There were thirty names on that board. Half, if not more, of them kids. All of them missing, all of them after the attacks, once you got close enough to see the board better. These weren’t people who’d never made it back, these were children who’d never been missing in the first place. Picked up from the Gooseberry, or outside the Boot’s Motel, or down by the old drive-in. Not lost because of something that no one had seen coming, but because there was _something wrong_.  
  
It wasn’t _natural_. Not just the four Laundromats-- and, there _was_ a college in Carthage, or so the board said under the tattered pamphlets-- but the _silence_. The utter lack of any sort of sound other than the leaf skeletons skittering along the highway, scratching and scraping at the cement. They crunched beneath Sophie’s feet as she turned in a slow circle, hands clutching the handles of the bags she held anxiously.  
  
“There’s more here,” she started, though her voice was faint at first and Eliot had to strain a bit to hear, “than meets the eye. I doubt the town is deserted, if they’ve got signs up asking for any news of their missing family and friends... and yet, no one’s come to ask who we are, or if _we’ve_ got any news. It’s bloody weird if you ask me.”  
  
“No one did,” Parker said, with a scowl, brows drawn together. She ventured closer to the board, brushed her fingers across one of the names. _Alice Jones, 7_.  
   
 _Alice_ _._  
   
No one reprimanded her for snapping. No one said anything for a long moment, the silence broken by leaf-brush and the steadily growing patter of the rain.  
  
“Look,” Eliot finally said, “It _is_ weird, I’ll admit, there’s somethin’ seriously _off_ here-”  
  
“ _Hinky_ ,” Hardison agreed with a nod, sidling closer to Parker.  
  
“-but we gotta get inside, or with our luck someone’s gonna get sick and then we’re screwed.” The rain chose that moment - as if to accentuate his words - to downpour, sheets of cold, silvery-grey rain, rebounding off the sidewalk hard enough to sting. The air grew infinitely colder with the sudden downpour, the water acting as a coolant for the already chilly temperatures.  
   
Eliot knew that breaking into a house when they wanted to make a good impression-- didn’t want the townspeople to think that, maybe, they were the people heisting their loved ones-- wasn’t the best idea, but they couldn’t deal with fevers or bronchitis right now. They didn’t have the capabilities to take care of something like that properly. They hadn’t had time to break into any drugstores, before. Hadn’t wanted to, after, in case anything was contaminated.  
   
Eliot backed away from the board and headed through the yard beside them, only looking back to growl, once, “Follow me.” Because they weren’t going to die from something like a cold, not in this day and age. And they could explain anything away, with luck. Maybe this home was even one that had been abandoned since right after the attacks. He heard the footsteps of the others behind him, and Hardison’s voice though the words were distorted as he kicked in the door and it flew open, hitting the wall inside and rebounding back at him.  
   
“We’re seriously breakin’ into a house on _Elm Street_? Do you _want_ us all to die?”  
   
“Shut up, Hardison.”  
  
It was dark, empty, and chilly, but still warmer than it had been outside. There was a fine layer of dust on the carpet; it puffed up in clouds when his feet scuffed it, quickly damped down by the wetness dripping from his jacket. He hurried further inside, eyes alert, to allow the others in.  
  
“Dude, it smells like old lady in here!” Hardison said, following very nearly in Eliot’s footprints until he almost ran into the hitter. The moment he moved away, though, there was a loud _thud_ followed by more gibberish. The hacker’s bony shins had, apparently, met the coffee table that Eliot could just now see, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. Parker snorted out a laugh, dropping the bags onto that coffee table without a thought.  
  
“It does! Do you think she’s got anything va-”  
  
“Parker.” Nate’s voice was sharp, but not harsh, and firm. “Focus.”  
  
“Focusing, focusing.” Eliot swore he could practically see the smoke pouring out of Parker’s ears as she mumbled, her eyes narrowed as she looked around the house, as if looking for something. And, maybe she was, because she was making a beeline-- avoiding the furniture, unlike Hardison-- for what had to be the kitchen, if he could see anything right in what little light filtered in from outside. It wasn’t much, but it did help his eyes to adjust faster.  
  
He looked at Nate as Hardison-- still muttering occasional curses-- set down his load on the coffee table that had so recently injured him. “This’ll be good, I don’t think anyone’s been in it for months, maybe they were even gone before the attack.” In which case, they might be even safer than he’d thought, though they’d need to let people know they were there if they were going to work.  
  
“Maybe she hasn’t even been here all year,” Sophie added, as she moved further into the house herself, kicking up more dust. She waved a hand in front of her face, as if it’d help her out any as Hardison started to sneeze repeatedly, nearly bent double. “Dust does _not_ build up this fast, not this badly.”  
  
Nate clapped his hands together, rubbing them -- he looked for all the world like he always had when planning, plotting, twisting fate to (as Sophie had once said) his own bizarre machinations. “Alright, this is...this is good, we can work with this...” He looked toward the kitchen, and added, “But we’re still going to have to tell them we’re here. Last thing we want is...them thinking...” He went silent for a moment, and shook his head. No doubt thinking about those names. All those kids. “We don’t want a lynch mob, so we go on the offensive.”  
  
Hardison paused without looking up, and Nate pulled a face. “The most inoffensive offense in the history of offense, yes, Hardison, I know that.” He waved at the house around them. “At least, in this rain, we ought to be good for tonight.”  
  
“No one’ll come out in it, and the ones who do won’t be coming out for good reason.” Eliot agreed, expression dark as he watched the kitchen, waiting for Parker to show again. “Tonight we get a good rest, make somethin’ to eat, and tomorrow maybe the rain’ll be past.” And, maybe he’d wake up not wanting to curl up into a ball, all stiff and sore, but that was wishful thinking. “So what’re we thinking?” He asked, then, not even bothering to clarify that he meant food as he rubbed his open palm against his forehead.  
  
“Well,” Hardison’s voice was a little _too_ bright, a little _too_ cheerful, a little _too_ forced. “We have a choice between tuna, tuna and, for a change, tuna. For veggies, there’s corn, green beans or...” He dug a can out of the bag, squinted at it, and shuddered once the word came into focus. “-beets. Seriously. Who got _beets_?”  
  
“Hardison,” Sophie’s purring voice interrupted what was about to turn into a long-winded ramble about the vegetables, and the hacker set the offending can down again with a clatter.  
  
“Sorry,” he said, so low Eliot could barely hear it, “I just. I miss freakin’ _pizza_ , ok?” Parker started to come back into the room; paused, a ghost in the doorway, at the tone in Hardison’s voice. Eliot noticed the candles in her hands, and the box of matches, but she clearly wasn’t thinking about them herself as she added:  
   
“I miss money meaning something. I miss the smell of it. It’s not the same, now.” And, it wasn’t food, but Eliot got it. She missed something, and it was just as important to her as Hardison’s pizza was. The hacker probably missed his orange soda, too-- everything they’d found lately had been flat.  
  
“And I miss having an actual stove,” he muttered, grabbing the tuna and the green beans, then digging until he came up with pasta and an unopened plastic container of Mayo. “But hey, we’ll have something good all the same.” He’d make sure of it, he thought, as he moved to where Parker was, still in the doorway. “Get everything set up-- who knows how long we’ll be here.”  
  
The kitchen was clean, less dust -- less soft surfaces to collect the dust, anyways, though there was still a thin grey film over the stove. He set the cans and jars down on the counter, cursing pulled muscles and sore joints, and tried to focus, instead, on this facsimile of cooking.  
  
Cooking was easy in the way that people were hard - you simply followed directions, followed a set series of steps, and things turned out ok. The tuna, pasta and mayo soon resembled a tuna-noodle casserole (sans the things that usually made those edible, unfortunately) but...well. It was food and it wouldn’t kill them, which was more than a lot of people could say these days.  
   
Maybe he couldn’t fool them into not noticing that he _hurt_ , but at least he could keep them fed.


End file.
